


you can't start a fire without a spark

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASoIaF Kink Meme, Alternate Universe - High School, Dancing, Friends to Lovers, I REGRET NOTHING, M/M, Prom, Schmoop, shameless exploitation of bruce springsteen lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Jon has never told Sam that it’s been a year since he realized that </i>maybe<i> he doesn’t just like Sam in the best friends forever way, but he’s never said anything, mostly because he’s pretty sure that Sam isn’t into guys and he doesn’t want to make things awkward between them, and it’s also half of the reason why he wasn’t going to the damned prom - he’s not interested if he’s not going with someone he likes.</i> Or: where Sam is Jon's prom date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can't start a fire without a spark

**Author's Note:**

> written for an asoiaf kink meme prompt: _Jon takes Sam the the prom after noticing how heartbroken Sam was that he didn't have a date. Bonus: they have their first kiss there_. The title is from Bruce Springsteen, I own absolutely nothing and the background Robb/Theon wasn't planned but I couldn't resist it.

Jon should have known that the day had started bad from the moment the fifteenth girl in three days stops him on his way to class to ask him if he’d go to prom with her. He politely refuses for the fifteenth time in three days - Mya is a lovely girl and so he’s careful not to put it as if he has a problem with her asking. Well, it’s the truth - it’s not that he doesn’t want to go to prom with her, it’s that he doesn’t want to go at all. You’d think that people would have understood it after he said it the first five times, but apparently it’s not a thing.

Mya leaves shrugging, and he walks on just to be stopped by Myrcella Baratheon first and Tyene Sand later.

He’s pretty sure that some guys who had been standing by mutter _he must be insane_ when he refuses them both - sometimes he really wishes he never joined the damned soccer team. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have gained enough popularity to make him prom material, and seriously - he doesn’t care for dressing up, he doesn’t care for dancing and if he had to go, well, he’d like it if at least he had talked to his date more than twice. If someone in the family has to use the precious suit that his uncle had worn when he asked his wife out for the first time when he was seventeen, then Robb can take it and Jon won’t have a thing to object on that matter.

Anyway, it makes him barely on time for class, which means that when he drops sitting next to Sam and sees that he’s obviously upset he can’t even ask what’s wrong - the moment he takes off his jacket, the teacher has walked into the room already. Well then, he figures, there’ll be time at recess.

Except that twenty minutes into English Lit Sam isn’t paying attention, and in… what, twelve years since they knew each other, there hasn’t been one occasion when Sam hadn’t paid attention during English Lit.

Ah well, Jon reasons, he can always ask Robb to pass him his notes at home. He tears a piece of paper from his notebook and writes down on it.

_What happened?_

He hands Sam the piece of paper - he looks down at it, sighs and writes back on it.

_Long story._

_Doesn’t seem to me like you’re paying attention anyway._

_Later. But - well. My dad. And my brother. And the usual._

Their teacher stares at them even if they’re at the bottom desk of the third row and Jon figures that it’s not worth to risk putting the two of them in detention, so he pretends to be writing down notes and waits until recess - when it finally arrives, it almost feels like a liberation. They wait for everyone else to leave the classroom, no one actually stays there during recess so no one will disturb them, hopefully.

“So, spill. What happened?”

“Prom,” Sam says dejectedly.

“Wait, I thought you said you weren’t going.”

Sam sighs. “Well, it’s not that I don’t _want_ to, I guess it could be nice, but I just had figured that there was no point. Then my brother came home saying he was going with Nymeria Sand since this year people can attend even if they aren’t graduating. And I wouldn’t have given a damn except - well, you know how my dad is about it.”

“Yeah, and one day I’ll stop being polite around him,” Jon agrees. He knows Sam’s father well enough in that sense - he can bet money that he started telling Sam that it’s ridiculous that his brother gets such a lovely girl (lovely meaning popular) and _he_ can’t, but then again maybe he would if he stopped reading so much and put some effort in some sport instead, and it’s been like that since the two of them met twelve years ago. Jon really _doesn’t_ like Sam’s dad, if that wasn’t clear enough.

“Then my sisters joined in,” Sam says, still sounding totally miserable. “In the end - well, I went and asked Gilly. I mean, she said she wasn’t going to go either but her sisters were being horrible about it and so I asked her. And she had said yes.”

Except that it must have not gone according to plan. Jon doubts that it’s Gilly’s fault - she’s in class with them and she’s a perfectly lovely girl. Who had the misfortune of hooking up with some twenty-year old idiot who left her pregnant in the second-to-last year of high school and disappeared, and she didn’t drop out even if she kept the baby. But since she took that decision, most of her friends don’t talk to her anymore except for Ygritte, who is coincidentally the only other person with whom both him and Sam hang out regularly. At some points Sam has gone and babysat her kid whenever she and Ygritte wanted to catch a movie or something like that, so Jon can see why he’d have asked her - they’re good friends and they’d have probably had more fun going together than searching for a date.

“Except that it turns out that she can’t find a babysitter and Ygritte is home with that broken leg, so she can’t come anymore. And - it’s nothing, but I kind of was starting to look forward to it. I figured it’d be nice, you know? So - uhm. Yesterday I might have asked a couple of people at the drama class.”

The one he does for extra credits. Jon thinks he should have picked that rather than soccer at times. And of course Sam would be looking forward to it - not many people know that he actually _can_ dance pretty well, but he never has much occasion to show it. Well. Scratch part of that, _not many people_ translates to Jon and Sam’s mother. “Let me guess, it didn’t go well.”

“The nicest thing I was told was to get lost, but obviously somehow my brother knew when I came back home. And it went as well as you imagined. Clearly this morning I received a couple of choice notes on my desk, but what can you do.”

“Wait until the year is over and then be glad that you’re going to college and that we’ll both be out of here.”

Sam snorts at that. “Good point. It’s just that - I figured that for once I could have done that. I suppose I had it wrong.”

The thing is that Sam really looks kind of devastated about this, and Jon gets it, more or less. He also doesn’t get why people in this stupid school are so bloody shallow - if only they bothered to speak to Sam for anything except copying his homework and smirking about his PE skills they’d make themselves a favor.

The other thing is that Jon has never told Sam that it’s been a year since he realized that _maybe_ he doesn’t just like Sam in the best friends forever way, but he’s never said anything, mostly because he’s pretty sure that Sam isn’t into guys and he doesn’t want to make things awkward between them, and it’s also half of the reason why he wasn’t going to the damned prom - he’s not interested if he’s not going with someone he likes.

The other-other thing is that he really doesn’t get the appeal and that he hates dancing or dressing formally, but - oh, fuck it, he’s not going to be hung-up about this.

“And what if I went with you?”

Sam freezes on the spot and looks at him.

“What? You said you weren’t going. And you hate dancing.”

“True and true, but we haven’t been friends for twelve years for nothing, right? Come on, you want to go and if you want you should, and it’s not your fault if you’re surrounded by assholes.”

“… Did you just quote _Spaceballs_ at me?”

“I might have,” Jon replies, and Sam is smirking in spite of himself. Good. It always works. “I mean, I can stand two hours of that ridiculous thing. I’m afraid that I can’t drive you, though, Robb called dibs on the car.”

“That’s - that’s fine, I have it. Jon, are you sure? I mean, you don’t have to -”

“Sam, shut it. You’re going with me and that’s final.”

That’s when the bell rings and everyone runs back into the classroom.

Sam is still smiling to himself as the lesson starts, looking so pleased that he could burst, and Jon tries to detail his thoughts from _damn how doesn’t he understand how cute he is_ to _well, Snow, you have to find yourself something to wear_.

\--

Three days after, he’s cursing his life and his choices as he puts on a suit belonging to his cousin's fucking boyfriend. He wasn’t exactly going to tell Robb that he might need the only decent suit in the house after he let Robb call dibs on it a month ago, but clearly no one he knows owns a suit to lend him and he’s not going to spend any money on it. Then it turns out that Theon Greyjoy, aka Robb’s best friend turned boyfriend who is also Robb’s prom date (and that’s fucking weird enough), who is also roughly Jon’s size, owns this suit that he used to wear at not-better-specified _family gatherings_ and that he refuses to wear ever again. (He’s also going to prom dressed informally. It’s gonna be hilarious.) Robb knew for some reason, and asked him, and Jon had come home today to find the suit on his bed and a note from Theon on it whose content he’d rather forget.

But since they’re the same size and Jon already had a dress shirt… it fits him almost perfectly.

Fuck his life.

Seriously.

Robb is long gone when the doorbell rings - then again, Jon is the one getting picked up. He takes a last look at himself before leaving the room - the suit isn’t ripped anywhere and it still fits him, the only pair of nice shoes he owns are polished and he has his wallet and his keys. Good. Arya sends him an incredulous look as he walks down the stairs while Sansa shouts at him that he should clean up more often, and then he goes to open the door.

It’s Sam, obviously, but - damn. _He_ should be the one cleaning up more often. He usually sticks to those not exactly fashionable sweatpants and movie t-shirts, but he doesn’t do half so bad with the dark gray suit and light blue shirt he’s wearing. It’s also obvious that he has ironed everything properly before putting it up, which - it wasn’t Jon’s case exactly, but it’s already enough that he has a suit in the first place. No, Sam looks damn good like this, regardless of the clothes’ size - as if Jon ever cared - and he really doesn’t need to give himself out.

“Bowties? Really?” he asks, going for the first thing that he can think of so that he doesn’t say something stupid as if _I kind of want to make out with you right now, what about we skip the prom entirely._ Nevermind that he likes the bowtie overall - it’s the same color and cloth of the suit and definitely fits the entire picture, but Sam doesn’t need to know.

“Says the one who doesn’t have one at all,” Sam replies - it’s obvious that he understood at once that Jon wasn’t being serious.

“Ties make me feel like I could suffocate every second. I’m already wearing Theon’s suit, don’t make this worse on me.”

“You’re wearing _what_?”

“I’ll explain you on the car. And by the way, you look good. Bowtie excluded.”

Sam flushes red and Jon tries to stop himself from doing something stupid on his own porch, and then follows Sam into his used-but-nicely-kept Ford and proceeds on telling him exactly how he came into possession of his clothes. Sam loses it when Jon tells him the content of the note Theon left him, but at least they’re at a red light, and - damn. Jon really doesn’t get how it happens that Sam’s dick of a brother gets the prom dates and Sam doesn’t. They find a parking place without too much effort - at least they’re not late enough that they have to search for one outside school ground - and after he gets out of the car, Jon looks at the entrance - there are a lot of people crowding it already, going inside and heading straight for the gym.

Well, time to show the world that he’s a horrible dancer and that everyone who asked him would have been better off with Sam, really.

“So, should we?” He asks, holding out his arm.

There’s not much light in the yard right now, so he’s not sure if Sam is flushing or if it’s just him seeing things.

“You’re doing this properly, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’m not going to do it half-assed.”

Sam gives him that small, pleased smile and puts his arm through Jon’s.

As they walk towards the entrance, Jon decides that he might as well make the most of this, since it’s not as if he’ll have another occasion anytime soon.

\--

“This is so embarrassing,” Sam whispers to him as they walk through the hallway - everyone currently at the sides and not heading for the gym is looking at the two of them as if they hadn’t even suspected that this might happen. Which Jon finds kind of ridiculous - he and Sam have been friends since forever and it’s not as if it’s some kind of mystery, but it smiling amiably back at every confused stare is already making the effort worth it.

“Why? I’m having the time of my life,” he whispers back as he nods towards one of the girls that he’s pretty sure is in drama class with Sam.

“Everyone is _staring_!”

“Let them stare. They’ll be jealous of me when I start stomping on your feet, I think.”

“You know that we don’t really have to dance, do you?”

Jon does know that, but right now it really doesn’t matter.

“Yes, but I know you like it, so if you can deal with me being terrible at it, I think I can sacrifice myself.”

By then, they’re in front of the gym - Sam hands their tickets to the two guys taking them and they’re finally in.

Jon is half-sure that whoever planned this needs to be fired - the drapes are all in flashy green, yellow and pink and it looks like whoever put them together was on an acid trip. Not to mention that there’s damned One Direction playing as they walk inside - this isn’t a _junior high_ thing, damn it. 

“I can sacrifice myself,” he tells Sam as they head for two free chairs that he has spotted, “but not with that music.”

“Agreed,” Sam answers as he takes the seat, and if Jon wishes that they didn’t have to stop being arm in arm, he tries not to show it.

“I’m going to get us some drinks,” he says a moment later. “Anything you’d like?”

“Uh, not really. A Coke maybe?”

“Got it. I’ll be back in a moment.”

He stands up exactly as Sam’s brother notices them - he arrived just a moment ago. Jon smirks and squeezes Sam’s shoulder before making his way to the makeshift bar and hoping that the song ends soon because he’s not sure he can’t stomach it for any much longer. (The fact that these people actually are out recording music while My Chemical Romance is _not_ has to be a proof that this is an unjust world, Jon thinks.) When he finally has the two Cokes, it’s over - thankfully - and the deejay has moved on to what seems like some best of eighties compilation. Well, at least Reo Speedwagon isn’t as bad, Jon figures, and then he turns to his side and finds himself face to face with Robb. It’s probably a good thing that he got the suit, Jon figures - it really looks good on him.

“So, how is it going?” Robb asks.

“We got here five minutes ago, so other than the horrible music and the staring, I think fine. Why?”

Robb shakes his head and moves slightly closer. “Jon, you’ve been pining for a year or so. If I were you, I’d spill. Not a better occasion than this.”

“Robb -”

“I would.”

Then he turns his back on him and walks to the other side of the room - right. Theon’s there, and clearly he was true to his word - he came in worn-out jeans and some Pearl Jam t-shirt that has to be some vintage relic from the early nineties, and then -

Well fuck it. The last thing he needed to see this evening was his brother and his ridiculously dressed boyfriend dance cheek to cheek on _Can’t Fight This Feeling_ , but the thing is that Theon actually goes with it without even blinking, and for a moment Jon feels a pang of jealousy - they’re also getting stares, but they aren’t giving a shit either way, and - and maybe Jon sees the appeal. Even if he hates dancing.

He walks back to the chair next to Sam and hands him his coke. “Hey. Everything all right?”

“Except for the staring and my brother taking the time to tell me that I’m pathetic if I’m resorting to convince my best friend to be my date?”

“Shit, can’t he keep it for himself, can he?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect. I see you weren’t trampled by the crowd, though.”

“No, I was just mentally scarred when I saw my cousin slow dancing, but I’ll get over it.” Then he glances around the room as he sips from his coke. “Huh. It looks like your brother is doing a lot worse than Robb, though.” He nods towards the center of the room - Dickon is doing a decent job of running his feet into Nymeria’s high heels and Sam can’t help snorting at that.

“To think that I told him that I could have shown him how it works. He said that he didn’t need me to provide such stupid information.”

“Well, your brother knows nothing.” He’s also aware that he’s starting to speak like Ygritte right now, but at times her catch phrase just fits.

Then Reo Speedwagon faints into the background and for some kind of miracle whoever is in charge of the music seems to have had a moment of good taste - _Dancing in the Dark_ starts a moment later and Jon figures that considering everything he’s heard until now, he won’t be able to do better than Bruce Springsteen. He glances at the side of the room where his cousin was - he’s still there with Theon, and they’re still dancing in their small corner, probably making the teeth of everyone standing next to them rot at once, and - all right, that’s it, even if he’s not sure that he’s going to spill he might as well go for it.

He holds a hand out to Sam. “Well, it seems like finally there’s something not entirely horrible playing. May I have this dance?”

Sam flushes - this time it’s obvious - but he puts his paper cup on the ground and grabs Jon’s hand without blinking.

“Sorry in advance about your feet,” Jon says nervously as they stand up and move slightly towards the crowd of dancing couples.

“Jon, just so you know, if you don’t look down at them there’s a higher chance that you won’t do half as bad as you think.”

“Yeah, and I really think you should start leading now, because that was as much as I could come up with.”

Really. He has no clue of what he should do. And then Sam’s right hand goes to his shoulder and the left to his back, and Jon lets his own hands move so that they’re on Sam’s sides, and at this point he starts wondering if he should make sure that he’s not indeed putting his feet wrong, but then Sam shakes his head.

“Just don’t think about it and stop worrying, will you? This isn’t waltz, just go with it.”

Sounds easy. Probably not as easy as actually doing it, but Jon takes a breath and tries to follow the advice - or better, he tries not to over think what he’s doing and tries to follow Sam’s motions. By now they’re past the first refrain and the last thing that Jon wants to hear is that you can’t start a fire without a spark - it’s not really helping him. Not when Sam is actually moving gracefully around the small space they’ve apparently claimed for themselves and leading him around decently enough that he hasn’t fallen over his own feet yet, and when his face is so close, and when he’s so warm as he presses up next to him. And the thing is that Sam falls into it in a moment, all his motions confident for once.

“See?” Sam tells him in the middle of the second refrain. “You’re not doing half as bad as you think.”

“Just because I’m following you, I don’t even know what I’m doing. But - fine. I’ll give it to you. It’s not so horrible.”

“Jon, you don’t have to pretend that -”

“No. No, I actually like this. Hey, if the next one isn’t damned Justin Bieber, I think I might go for a second round.”

Sam’s eyes go wide at that, and he seems about to answer, but then someone, in a lovely display of sense of humor, turns down the light at _there’s a joke somewhere and it’s on me_.

Right. Dancing in the dark. Obviously they’d turn down the lights. 

“I mean it, you know,” Jon whispers as they move closer - no one can see them, right? So unless they end up crashing into someone else nothing is going to happen, and he doesn’t miss that the hand Sam still has on the small of his back might have pressed a little harder.

“Really? Well - then - I’d like it? I mean, I don’t really do this so much, so -”

“I know. And it’s a pity,” he says, feeling suddenly a lot bolder than before.

“A - a pity?”

“What if I told you that I haven’t done this just in the name of friendship?”

“Why else would you?”

Thing is, Jon is perfectly aware that Sam hasn’t really kissed anyone properly yet. And he knows Sam well enough to be sure that he’s the kind of person who’d care about who would their first proper kiss be. So he goes slow and he doesn’t bother answering before he presses his lips to the corner of Sam’s mouth at the umpteenth _you can’t start a fire without a spark_.

“Did - did you just kiss me?” Sam whispers a moment later, barely audible over the sax solo.

“That wasn’t even a kiss, but I would. If - if you wanted to.”

“You - wait, you - _oh_.”

“Sam? We can just forget it if -”

He never finishes that sentence, because Sam’s mouth is pressed against his own before he can, and he doesn’t waste time when he’s been wanting to do this for too damn long as far as he’s concerned - he kisses back without wasting a moment, his hands going to Sam’s face, moaning a bit when Sam’s hands reach up and tangle in between his hair, and he doesn’t realize that the light has been turned on until he realizes that no music is playing and that there’s silence all around them.

He doesn’t break the kiss because of that though - he does that just when he really needs to breathe - and when he glances at the rest of the room… well. Robb looks smug, Theon looks smug along with him, everyone else is mostly staring and Dickon’s jaw is definitely this close to dropping to the ground. Jon smirks at him and looks back at Sam - his cheeks are definitely flushed now, and his lips look dark pink and damn but Jon wants to kiss him again. And then he realizes that he has no reason _not_ to - so what if people stare at them for the next three weeks? They won’t have to see any of them anymore after it’s done.

“Snow, what the hell are you doing?”

Right. Clearly one of the three teachers that had to supervise things from afar is Alliser Thorne, their PE teacher, who’s been Sam’s bane for the last five years and who hates the two of them and made no mystery of it.

Ah well, he figures, Sam’s grades are over the top in anything else, so whatever Thorne might do if Jon pisses him off right now won’t really matter, will it?

“I’m kissing my date. Same as… I think most of this room. I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed.”

Thorne glares at the two of them before stalking away - well, he can’t do anything when half of this room has made out at some point or the other.

There’s another moment of silence.

“So, what’s so interesting about those two kissing? It’s not like they have to give you a show, bloody let them. And half of you hasn’t voted here, so why don’t you go and do it already instead of waiting for flies to lay eggs into your mouths?”

Right. Jon never thought that he’d end up thanking Jaime Lannister (another teacher who was supposed to supervise and who’s in charge of the prom king and queen votes, and whose history lessons are apparently famous for being hilarious - he wouldn’t know, he never was in his class) out of everyone, but right now he is, and as everyone else goes back to their business (either dancing or casting their votes), the music starts again.

Clearly it had to be Journey. Clearly it had to be _Don’t Stop Believing_. Still better than One Direction, even if for the circumstances it’s kind of corny. But whatever, the entire circumstances are and he doesn’t really mind that much.

“So,” he says, “may I have the second dance or you’d rather make out in the car? I’m entirely down with both options.”

“Wait - I mean, so you - you actually -”

“Sam, I _like_ you. And I’ve kind of wanted to do this for a while, so yes, I actually mean that. And if I hadn’t assumed that you weren’t interested I’d have asked you to be my date at this stupid dance a lot earlier. So, what’s your pick?”

“I think - I think that I’d like that dance, then I’d like to vote and make Mr. Lannister’s presence meaningful, then I could go for another dance, and then I think - I think that the car would be good.”

“Just because it’s you, I’ll agree to the third dance,” Jon answers, and so maybe they’re kissing again as they get started on the second.

Surely, Jon has stopped thinking about how bad he is at it. He doesn’t even care. He thinks he might even like it.

They cast the votes after - and good, because Journey had turned into Village People and Jon is drawing the line at that. He votes for his cousin and Theon just for the kicks of it and Sam does the same after seeing his ballot, and they’re the last before Lannister decides that it’s high time he counts the damn votes.

When finally a decent song airs (well, _Every Rose Has Its Thorn_ is still better than half of the best of eighties that they had to endure since Village People started) and it’s actually good for slow-dancing, Sam goes back to leading him around like a pro and they spend it looking at each other like ridiculous twelve year-olds, and when at half of it Sam flushes and tells him that he had in fact _liked_ Jon throughout high school Jon sees fit to kiss him stupid again, and they’re so into it that they stop only when they hear Lannister on a microphone saying that they have the prom king and queen results and he’d like to give them so that he can go home and let everyone leave so that they can get drunk at their own leisure.

So maybe Jon almost dies laughing when Robb and Theon actually win the damned thing and tells Sam to get the pictures because he can’t possibly stop laughing long enough to snap one - blackmail material is always good to have.

Then he leaves them to their spotlight and grabs Sam’s hand - they leave without many people noticing and reach Sam’s car in minutes. For a moment he relishes that he’s finally breathing fresh air, and then he opens the backdoor - Sam gets into the car with him without asking questions, and they’re still holding hands.

“So,” Jon says, “you owe me some making out.”

“Woah - well, gladly. But don’t pretend that you didn’t enjoy it.”

“Fine, fine. I enjoyed it. But I wouldn’t have if I had gone with someone else.”

“Jon -”

“Sam. I really think we should make out now. Talking is for later.”

And before Sam can start asking him _how_ is this even happening, Jon proceeds on kissing him again, and Sam doesn’t even try to talk for a long time after. Good, because Jon’s plan is kissing him until he forgets to ask the stupid question Jon is sure he was about to ask, and maybe he’s planning a way for the two of them to grab breakfast together next morning, and maybe he’s thinking of the kinds of PDA he can get out with in the last week of school.

Fine, maybe there’s an utility to the institution of prom, he’ll have to admit it. But for now he’d rather think about kissing Sam stupid rather than that, and so he does.

End.


End file.
